Drums
by Cheloya
Summary: Snippet. Rude, Reno and Elena in a room waiting for their next mission. Set before Rufus' inauguration. Not as pathetic as it sounds.


Disclaimer: I don't own the Turks or anything else in this... but I think I definitely own this idea. ^^ Don't steal!

A/N: What can I say about this? Reno, Rude and Elena mucking around at Shinra HQ... that's pretty much all this is. ^^ Set a few days or so before the Rufus Ceremony in Junon. (Yes, I know you hear the Turks' Theme before then.) I have some weird obsession with Elena. I love her personality! She's great to write. ^^ I just can't help myself.

I may not be able to describe the musical stuff too well, being's I've never tried to play the drums or whatever, but... just download a MIDI of the Turks' Theme or something and put it on, okay? You'll know what I'm talking about.

This pretty much came of me being really bored and siting in the car by myself and slapping my thighs boredly to some rhythm or other in my head. The slaps formed the Turks' Theme. Then I said the magic words: ...dah nah naaaaahhhh...

Drums

They faced each other across a table scattered with various paraphernalia. Bottle tops, vouchers, gil... Elena didn't even know what half of it was, but apparently her new teammates valued it all enough to bet with. Reno and Rude were playing poker, had been for hours. They just sat there, picking up cards, laying them down, faces as blank as only a Turk's face could be. Reno had confiscated Rude's sunglasses at the beginning of the poker-fest on the grounds that it was cheating. It didn't seem to be affecting Rude's game, though. He was still slowly but steadily wiping the floor with Reno. The flame haired Turk would get in a good hand once in a while, but it was hard for him to contain his childish glee when he knew he had a perfect hand, and hard for him to fake exuberance when he knew that his hand was a piece of slum gutter trash.

Elena had been watching them for hours, and she was getting *really* bored. She had already lowered herself to drinking one of the many disgusting beers that were stacked in the fridge of the Turks' green room. She sighed loudly, flipping her hair out of her face for what seemed like the thousandth time. She tried to veil her impatience - what if Tseng cast her out of the Turks? He wasn't here right now, but what if Reno told him? Reno didn't like her very much, she knew. He was always really snide and mean to her. She didn't like him much either, but Rude was even worse. Rude was just... silent all the time. Big, silent, scary Rude with his ham fists and perfect posture. He was exactly what she had always imagined bodyguards to be, back before she had met some of them. Now she realised that he was probably the only one who wasn't loud or violent, bar Tseng himself.

She smiled as she thought about Tseng. Just thinking of him, picturing him in her mind's eye, made her stomach tingle. She wondered how long it would be before he got back from... wherever he was. She sighed again. She really wanted to have something to do, but she didn't want to seem antsy. She was patient - she was! Her patience just didn't extend to spending four hours in silence while the only two living creatures in the room played cards. The one bit of something resembling excitement was when a spider had found its way onto Reno's arm. Elena had dived forward to rescue the poor thing - Reno was swearing and shaking his arm all over the place, trying to squash it. It wasn't even very big, only about the size of her palm. She had saved it from the wrath of the Dress Shoes From The Sky and released it into the hallway while Reno complained and swore. Remembering that this hallway led onto the one with Scarlet's office, Elena hoped rather cruelly that the spider found its way into the slutty woman's office.

Elena's bored chocolate gaze passed over the room: an assortment of desks, computers, bookshelves and filing cabinets. The three workspaces in this room were hers, Rude's and Reno's - Tseng had an office of his own. Rude's desk was as spick and span as Elena's own, but Reno's was a mess. Loose papers and full ashtrays and empty bottles abounded on the desk and around the computer. Elena wrinkled her nose at the thought. Sometimes she just wanted to go over to that desk and _organise_ everything, for God's sake! She hated the clutter. She couldn't understand how Reno could bear to have such a disgustingly messy working environment. 'Then again, I don't get how he can stand to wear his uniform like that, either. Disgraceful.' Elena thought with a mental sniff.

Firmly looking away from Reno's desk and banishing the urge to clean it, Elena's eyes fell on the only other interesting thing in the room: a drum set. She pursed her lips disapprovingly as she remembered that they were kept here because of the lack of storerooms. The preparations for Rufus' inauguration had involved the dragging-out of every instrument Shinra Inc. owned. This drum set would never be used - how on earth could someone march down a Junon street carrying all this? She wished that the new President would just get rid of them and quit cluttering up their green room. Still, there was nothing else to do. Standing up and stretching, Elena wandered over to the drum set and looked at them closely. Her older brother had played the drums. He had taught her when she was younger. Elena's eyes lit up at the memory. She had loved it when he spent time with her, even if it was learning how to play his stupid, noisy drums. She sat down and looked around for the drumsticks.

They were resting on top of the huge bass drum. She grabbed them and peered at the stand attached to the drum set. Several sheets of music lay on top of them. 'Theme for Rufus Ceremony' they proclaimed. Elena's eyes narrowed as she tried to remember. She twirled the drumsticks to limber up her fingers. Then, tongue sticking out in child-like concentration, Elena began to tap out what she could make out of the marching tune. 'Not that there's really much tune without all the brass behind it, but...'

"What're ya doin', 'Laney?" Reno drawled from behind his cards. He was grinning, apparently surprised to see such a 'girly-girl' (as he often called her) picking up a set of drumsticks. Elena shrugged as she tried to keep up the rhythm while paying attention to Reno at the same time.

"Just playing... what's it look like, Reno?" She replied, eyes focussed keenly upon the music. 'Hey, this is actually kinda fun...' The whole score was there before her. A frown appeared as she tried to figure out the notes that the marching band would play. She began to hum, then to whistle as she gained confidence. Pleased that she knew what the thing sounded like now, Elena started it up again, louder and more tunefully. Reno flung down his cards and jumped up from his seat at the poker table. A grin decorated his face as he came to stand behind Elena, looking at the music.

"Holy shit, Elena, you can actually read this crap?" He exclaimed, eloquent as ever. "Sweet! That's @#$%in' awesome. Don't ya think so, Rude?" Without waiting for his friend's reply, Reno plunged on. "Can you jam? Or can you just play it from the music?"

"Uh..." Elena stopped trying to play the marching music and shrugged, drumsticks resting on the edge of a cymbal as she hushed it. Rude was watching her, a rare glimmer of pleasure showing in his green eyes. She grinned sheepishly. "I guess I could try... my brother's 'jamming' was always really loud and awful, though... don't blame me if I've picked that up." She held her head high, tucked her blond hair behind her ears again and thought for a few seconds. "Okay, I have an idea. How about I do some stuff and then you guys join in whenever you feel like it?" At Rude's dubious silence, she added. "Come on, it'll be fun! Pleeeeease?" She wheedled. Reno laughed and ran a hand through his hair.

"Sure, rookie. Whatever you say." He agreed good-naturedly. Elena poked her tongue out at him for the hated nickname and looked down at her options. She began the way her brother never had - soft touches of a cymbal instead of frantic hammering of tinny, low-quality drums. Then she added more too it, bringing in the bass drum and some of the other percussion instruments attached to the drum set. Rude was the first to come in with a contribution, surprising Reno and Elena when he clicked his fingers rhythmically. It was the natural thing for the silent man to add to the music. 'Apart from rests,' Elena thought, trying not to giggle as she kept up their beat.

Reno, being the loudmouth he was, naturally had to have an add-in that fit him. He waited a few more bars after Rude, then: "Dah nah naaahhhh..." He said loudly. Elena burst into laughter - it sounded so weird the way he said it, but strangely enough it fit right in with the music. Reno didn't care that she was laughing – he loved making a fool of himself. It was what he _did_, though never on the battlefield.

Rude watched silently, still snapping his fingers, as Reno began to 'groove'. His face was schooled to perfect stillness, but a smile glimmered in his eyes as he observed his teammates. Elena seemed to be enjoying herself much more than she had all morning. He supposed they should have asked her if she wanted to play poker with them. Reno and Rude had been friends so long that neither bothered to ask, simply brought out a pack of cards and started shuffling. Elena hadn't quite managed to become totally comfortable around them yet. Reno's idiotic dance moves had ceased, and Elena's drumbeats were quieting. Rude stopped clicking. Elena's music faded.

Her face was flushed with laughter, chocolate eyes bright with mirth. She started to clap. Reno bowed mockingly. "Thankyou, thankyou, I'm here all week." He said, running a hand suavely through his hair and trying to look as though he was the most desirable thing the slums had ever spewed onto Shinra's doorstep. (He probably was.) Rude collected the cards that were scattered all over the tabletop and started to shuffle them. Reno automatically wandered to the fridge and grabbed them two more beers. He set them down on the table with two soft but firm clunks. From the corner of his eye, Rude saw Elena's face fall.

She lay down her drumsticks and stared at the silver rim of the bass drum_. So much for that_, he could guess her thoughts. _So much for acceptance. So much for our team._ She brushed her blond hair out of her brown eyes rusted over with rejection. Rude had earned a reputation of being cold and heartless as a lump of ice, but this… this he could not stand.

"Elena. Want to play?"

She looked up, hardly daring to believe. Rude almost smiled at the hope banishing the cold from her eyes. "Sure!" She exclaimed. She nearly tripped over those clunky heels of hers to get herself a chair and seated at the poker table. Rude began to deal, fast and practised, flipping cards to the table as though they were a set of throwing knives he had long ago perfected the use of. Reno grinned and winked at his taller friend and lazily sauntered back to the fridge to get a soda water. Elena didn't like beer.

"Um, Rude?" Her eyes were wide and innocent, eager and interested in everything around her. He didn't answer with his voice, but she knew he was listening. "I… don't really know how to play. Could you explain?"

Reno returned to the table, sliding the soda water along the surface until it was beside Elena's elbow. "Heck, no, 'Laney. Nobody ever explained it to me." She saw from his cocky grin that he was kidding. She smiled, taking a sip of soda water.

"Thanks, Reno." Ever polite, this new Turk. Rude finished dealing, then scraped Elena's hand back into the pile. Her eyes widened again in dismay.

"Play with me this hand so you learn what to do." Rude said calmly, deftly sorting his hand into the order he wanted them. Elena beamed.

"Okay, Rude." She shifted her chair closer and peered over his shoulder. Reno explained the rules while Elena studied the cards. She opened her mouth to say something, but Rude's large hand covered her mouth. His green eyes were wry as he stared at her.

"You were going to say something about my hand. Don't." He said. Elena grinned sheepishly and nodded, making a mental note to keep her big mouth shut during this game. She watched avidly, glad to be included, as Rude began the cruel and amusing process of beating Reno's ass into the ground. Then that hand was finished, and she thought she understood enough to lose alongside Reno until whenever they were needed next.

Hey, it wasn't much, but it was a life.

***

A/N: Yeah, I know… I always manage to end these on completely unrelated notes. I don't know how I do it. Plain, raw unTalent, I guess. *amused* Anyways, please review, even to tell me that this was a pointless waste of time. ^^ Reno's "Dah nah naaaahhhh" amused me to no end while I was waiting in that godscurst car. But then, property hunting with one's father does that, I suppose. :)


End file.
